On Media

White House hits TV networks for skipping immigration address

The White House is exasperated with the major broadcast networks — ABC, CBS and NBC — for skipping out on President Barack Obama’s Thursday prime-time address on his executive actions on immigration.

“In 2006, [President George W.] Bush gave a 17-minute speech that was televised by all three networks that was about deploying 6,000 National Guard troops to the border. Obama is making a 10-minute speech that will have a vastly greater impact on the issue. And none of the networks are doing it. We can’t believe they were aggrieved that we announced this on Facebook,” a senior administration official told POLITICO.

When the president wants to make a prime-time address, White House officials will reach out to the big networks, like ABC, NBC and CBS, to gauge whether they would consider running the speech live before putting in a formal request for airtime.

But on Wednesday morning, with plans underway for a Thursday night address on Obama’s plans to issue executive actions on some of the most sweeping immigration reform in decades, those feelers came back with a negative report. None of the major networks wanted to take time away from their prime-time programming for Obama’s 8 p.m. speech. So the administration did not send out a formal request to the networks and took to Facebook to publicize the speech with a special video message from Obama along with a link to the livestream.

To be sure, the media landscape is a much different place now than it was in 2006. Smartphones and tablets that could play a livestream were nearly nonexistent. Facebook was barely a few years old. Nevertheless, the White House resents the networks' new calculus.

There is a bright spot for the administration, though. Its target audience, Hispanics, will likely be tuning in. The two Hispanic-focused networks, Univision and Telemundo, will broadcast the speech live. Univision is even delaying the Latin Grammys broadcast for the speech. CNN, MSNBC, Fox News and PBS will also air the speech live.

We’ve reached out to the networks for a response and will update here accordingly.

UPDATE (11/20 10:00am):

Mike Allen reported in Playbook on Thursday morning that part of the reason the networks didn't want to air the address was because of its perceived political nature:

“There was agreement among the broadcast networks that this was overtly political. The White House has tried to make a comparison to a time that all the networks carried President Bush in prime time, also related to immigration [2006]. But that was a bipartisan announcement, and this is an overtly political move by the White House.”

UPDATE (11/20 5:30pm):

CBS News' Mark Knoller wrote in a tweet Thursday afternoon that CBS will cover the speech live for West Coast stations.

CBS providing coverage of the President's Address for West Coast stations where it will air live at 5pm/PT.